Looking
by SqLib
Summary: A Krit and Syl story.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing.

Chapter One

The bar is crowded and dim. She's surrounded by men whose scents, along with the dense fog of smoke, seem to permeate her senses until she can barely distinguish one from the other. Barely. Even now, in the relative peace that has taken over her life, her senses are alert. She looks up to see him across the room. He nods at her. She nods back. The guy seated at the table in front of hers leans in leering.Obviously he's gotten the wrong idea, but as he starts to get up, she stops him dead with a single look. She doesn't want trouble, but that part of her that's still running, the one that sounds an awful lot like Zack, tells her she's gone looking for trouble by staying so long in the same place, by staying with him.

_Six years to the day they disappeared, she learned to hope again. She didn't know how many had survived. She was alone, isolated from everything and everyone, cold. That first night after she'd found clothes and food, she'd fallen asleep in an isle of a library turned post pulse shelter. Her sleeping bag had been under a stack of books about New York; with all its skyscrapers and people, it seemed like the perfect place to hide. Once she got there, she figured not moving might be the easiest way to disappear. She went to school, worked her way from day to day, and learned to be invisible. At night she dreamed of the family that would come looking for her. _

_"Any day now," she would whisper to herself. She wondered if she'd recognize them, if they'd recognize her, or, if they even still cared. Six years to the day they disappeared, as she made her way to school down a crowded street, she made eye contact with a stranger. She hesitated and kept walking, but there was something about him that kept pulling at her. "He looked a hell of a lot like-no, couldn't be." She had thought she'd seen them before- him, Max, Jondy, Zack, Tinga and even Ben- but she'd been wrong before and she was wrong now. Her body told her to keep walking and she did._

_That night as she opened the door to her dingy apartment she heard someone hiding almost silently inside. "Stupid," she thought almost gleefully, "Very stupid." She walked in calmly and set her groceries on the counter. Before she could count to ten the intruder had managed to grab her, placing his hand over her mouth. She struggled for an instant-he was stronger than she had expected- but then training kicked in and she flipped him over her shoulder. He landed gracefully on his feet and she positioned herself for a counter attack. _

_"So it is you?" he said quietly. _

_"Who the hell are you?" she asked angrily. He moved deliberately over to the switch and flipped on the light. Fists clenched she took in the tall frame, dark hair and full lips. And the eyes. The eyes of the stranger in the crowd and those of a shy little boy hiding in the snow. _

"_Do you recognize me?" he asked. She sucked in her breath. It couldn't be, it could be a trick. _

"_Krit?" He nodded, smiled and stepped forward timidly. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. _

"_Hey Syl, you know, I've been looking for you." He whispered. She pulled back and gave him a watery smile. _

"_What took you so long? It's a good thing I recognized you, I might have killed you and that would have been a shame."_

"_Haha," He replied deadpan. "You and what army?" She punched him lightly in the shoulder. _

"_I was getting worried I might never see any of you guys again." She whispered. He fingered a long piece of her hair. Honey blonde, just as he remembered it. _

"_So far I've only seen you and Zack."_

"_Zack? He's alive? Why isn't he with you?"_

"_Zack's following protocol, keeping tabs on us but keeping on the move. He'll come to you." He paused. "When he thinks its best," he added quietly. _

"_And the others? Maxie, Ben, Jondy, Tinga?" _

"_I don't know. Zack says he knows where they are and that he's found almost all of them. I think he's still looking for Max though." Her heart sank a little, if anyone needed to be free it was Max. She looked up at him and smiled. _

"_And how about you, where are you staying?"  
"I have a motel room not too far…"_

"_Don't be an idiot. You're staying here. I'm about to cook myself dinner and you look like you could use some mac and cheese. Besides," she added hesitantly, "we've been separated for too long." She met his eyes and he nodded._

Her face softens when she feels the pressure of his hand on her shoulder.

"What took you so long? I thought I was going to die of hunger and thirst and that would have been a shame." She said, shoving him playfully.

"Did you know you're prone to exaggeration?" he replied, doing his best to keep a straight face while he positioned the tray on the table.

"Me? Never." She grabbed a piece of pizza and he did the same, moving a piece of hair gently from her eyes with his other hand. "Eat or it'll get cold." She mumbles through her full mouth.

"Well, that's attractive."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_The thing he remembers the most about the first couple of years after the escape is the cold. To this day he isn't sure how long he wandered in the snow; he remembers only that after a while every tree looked the same as the one before it and the periods of light and darkness moved too quickly for him to discern between them. He remembers a light in the distance, a cabin nestled in a thick grove of trees, the feeling of his body against the rough wooden walls and then letting go to a darkness far more tangible than the others. He woke up in a warm bed and a deep, kind voice told him he'd been asleep for three days._

_"You're a hell of a fighter, you know that?" Krit sat up, startled. "Don't worry youngster," an old man with a long white beard reassured him, "Whatever you're running from sure as hell won't find you here." The old man smiled then, and as Krit smiled back, he wondered if he'd ever seen any of the men at Manticore smile that way. "Now you go on back to sleep. You'll be safe here as long as you want to be." Krit stayed with him for three more years until, during the worst blizzard of the century, the old man passed away in his sleep. The thirteen year old X5 buried him with sadness and a prayer, packed his clothes and the old man's books, and went looking for his siblings. _

It still amazed him the way his dreams brought him back to Manticore. While he slept his mind replayed every event, both real and imaginary, that had made his childhood terrifying. For six months, he shared an apartment with Syl, sleeping on the couch that she'd somehow managed to make a serviceable, even comfortable bed. They cared for one another, that much was obvious, but after years of being alone they'd built walls around themselves that weren't easy to demolish. He remembers the night he'd discovered that he wasn't the only one with nightmares. Zack had always been the strong one, he was in charge and part of his responsibility was keeping a brave face. He made Krit feel as if he were weakest of the twelve, the perennial little brother that everyone had to defend. But that night he heard her cries through the wall and the illusion dissipated. Next to Zack, no one kept a stiff upper lip quite like Syl, but that night her dreams had betrayed her. In his mind he can still see her they way she was that night, fists clenching the sheets while tears slid silently down her face.

"_Syl?" he murmured, "Are you okay?" She relaxed her fists and nodded. He turned to leave, but she grabbed his hand. _

"_Please don't leave," she whispered. Wordlessly he crawled in beside her and smoothed the hair out of her eyes. Honey blonde, just like he'd always remembered it. They fell asleep almost instantly, the darkness of their past forgotten in the warmth of their intertwined hands. Forever afterwards, as both friends and lovers, it was an unspoken rule that one would not go to sleep without the other beside him. Late at night, with the sound of the city beneath them, Krit would keep the nightmares at bay by whispering the poetry and stories the old man had recited to him throughout the years. _

She smiles at him now, chattering incoherently about this and that through a mouthful of food and he can barely see the angry little girl from Manticore. This is his Syl, the girl who loves pizza and dirt biking, the girl who survived Manticore in more ways than one. She slaps at him animatedly, nudging him for the sarcastic, deadpan remark that often follows and he finds that this might be the only protocol he enjoys. That's thing about his relationship with Syl, he can see her from across a crowded, smoke filled room and know that he's the only one she's looking at.


End file.
